{"id":282811,"date":"2025-10-07T00:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T00:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/282811\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T00:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T00:24:15","slug":"investigation-launched-after-south-carolina-judges-house-burns-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/282811\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation launched after South Carolina judge\ufeff\u2019s house burns down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/erum_salam_headshot.jpeg\" alt=\"\" height=\"48\" width=\"48\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Oct. 6, 2025, 3:53 PM EDT\u00a0\/\u00a0Updated\u00a0Oct. 6, 2025, 6:18 PM EDT<\/p>\n<p class=\"styles_nameWrapper__hXI2W\" data-testid=\"byline\">By Erum Salam<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-54db40\" class=\"body-graf\"><strong>UPDATE (Oct. 6, 2025, 6:18 p.m. ET):<\/strong> The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said enforcement officials said Monday afternoon that there is no initial evidence to indicate the fire was intentionally set. The investigation remains ongoing.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8d040c\" class=\"body-graf\">Authorities are investigating a fire that destroyed the island home of a longtime South Carolina judge and her husband, a former state lawmaker.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-628a0a\" class=\"body-graf\">The house, in a gated community on the coast in Edisto Beach (about 50 miles southwest of Charleston), belongs to state Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein and her husband, former Democratic state Sen. Arnold Goodstein.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-7a5e2f\" class=\"body-graf\">Saturday\u2019s fire comes one month after Judge Goodstein temporarily blocked the state from handing the Justice Department the personal data of millions of voters. The state Supreme Court <a href=\"https:\/\/www.southcarolinapublicradio.org\/sc-news\/2025-09-12\/sc-supreme-court-says-south-carolina-can-release-voter-information-to-doj\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">overturned her ruling<\/a> shortly after.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-bd7b89\" class=\"body-graf\">Videos showed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mynbc5.com\/article\/south-carolina-judge-home-fire-investigation\/68846590\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">large blaze and clouds of smoke<\/a> engulfing the three-story home. Fire officials said people had to be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/stpaulsfire\/posts\/pfbid0fwtaTk3vEEyKrjAYF64bMeAX5E9PVJyTjvJnFcUCHjNTo3hDr9cvPiJkP7BH4vv6l\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">rescued from the backyard<\/a> by kayak. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-5e2275\" class=\"body-graf\">The judge, who has served on the bench <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sccourts.org\/courts\/trial-courts\/circuit-court\/judges\/diane-schafer-goodstein\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">since 1998,<\/a> was walking her dogs at the time, but her husband was home and jumped out the back to escape, a neighbor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/news\/local_state_news\/video-edisto-island-jeremy-cay-home-fire\/article_0d9ef52b-5fc7-4ed0-8843-db6939a40144.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">told The Post and Courier<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8f53b5\" class=\"body-graf\">The cause of the fire is not yet known. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, which is leading the investigation, told MSNBC that the probe is \u201cactive and ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct. 6, 2025, 3:53 PM EDT\u00a0\/\u00a0Updated\u00a0Oct. 6, 2025, 6:18 PM EDT By Erum Salam UPDATE (Oct. 6, 2025,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":282812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[50,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-282811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}